The colourful Pied Piper, a man of mystery

Where the Weser River meanders through beautiful hills, where fairy-tales like a chain of pearls reside along along its banks, a tragic incident occured in 1284. A story about deception and terrible revenge with an insufferable and mysterious outcome.

No happy end, no ever after. When the final lines are read, there remains the "inexplicable" loss of the Hameln children. Not the rats, but the traceless disappearance of 130 children, is the tragedy handed down the centuries. Led away by the Pied Piper, children are the victims - innocent and naive. In the center of it all, the man who did his job, ridding the town of the rodent pests that danced by daylight on the tables.

Mystery, Magic and Seduction

The Pied Piper, so called due to his strange garb, immediately drew his whistle, and the rats complacently followed his seductive song. Squeaking with surprise as they disappeared in the waves of the Weser, never to be seen again. The Council full of avarice and greed, made a fateful decision that they would regret for centuries.

Hamelin refused to pay the Piper, and ran him out of the town. In a contrivance of justice, the Pied Piper returned to Hameln on the 26th June to wreak a bitter revenge: he stole the city's future - their children. His enthralling melody lured girls and boys from their homes. Recklessly they wandered over hill and dale, enchanted by his lovely tune until they disappeared into a mountain not far from Hameln to never return.

Two children had fallen behind, one of them blind, the other dumb, so that neither could completely explain the tragedy.

Hameln fascinates

While no one knows exactly what occurred on that day, whether the tale originates from a resourceful scribe or from the gossip of garrulous citizens. What remains is the magic, that makes Hameln so bewitching for centuries. Hameln is unique on the German Fairy-Tale road, because the legend of the Piper is not at all a nice, happy fairy tale, but a gloomy narrative about deceit and revenge without no happily ever after.

This enigma makes the city world famous. The Pied Piper is known from Tasmania to Togo. Although more than 730 years have passed since the whistler set his flute to lead the children away, the search for answers continues to this very day. Why and where the children went, the historians are at odds. Was it the youth emigrating to a better life, did the Black Plague play a role or was it possibly a children's crusade? Choose a version of your preference to settle your soul, just as the parents of the Hameln Children did.